Sydnor

Confirmed.

Tavera was underslot

Agreed. If you “win” every negotiation or misread the market and leave $500K on the table, then you left talent on the table.

https://www.mlb.com/news/2022-mock-draft-mlb-top-prospects MLB 2022 early mock (they could just do their top 20 draft prospects). It gives you an idea of who some of the top guys will be going into next and ahead of the conclusion of the summer leagues.

I’m with you. I’m hopeful about Rodriguez and DL Hall, but Hall has the elbow and some very real reliever risk IMO. I tend to view everyone else as maybe lightning will strike and we’ll end up with a serviceable pitcher, but some might say that I’m just jaded.

I agree with you on almost everything in your draft related posts. I think (and certainly don’t want to put words into your mouth their mouths) that they have a higher opinion of the system than we do. I see depth, but limited upside. I’ve seen posts penciling Westburg and Vavra into starting positions on the MLB team. It is an easy thing to say that I’ll be shocked if either is an above average regular, but I’ll say it because that’s why I think they needed to add higher ceiling talent. I wasn’t as high on Lawler as you, but was high on Rocker, House, and Watson. If people think Westburg will be a quality starter at SS, Vavra (24 in AA) the will be a quality starter at 2b, and Bradish will be a 3, they probably think we have high ceiling talent. I just disagree.

1. Rutschman 2. Rodriguez 3. DL Hall 4. Henderson 5. Westburg 6. Jones 7. Kjerstad 8. Cowser 9. Stowers 10. Mayo

I’ll bite. That’s a high percentage of the slot value for the 5th overall pick.

He talked about it on a podcast. I think it was actually 6 years/$24 million with a couple team options after that, and the offer was made by Duquette, so it’s not all that relevant. He mentioned how when he got the diagnosis, turning down that money was something he thought about even though he knew it was the right thing to do. It was either Jones’ podcast or the one he did a couple episodes of with Sara, but I don’t have time to track it down for you.

Agreed. To be honest, Mayo is more likely to be a contributor on the 2024 Orioles as a 1B/COF (not that Mundy can play COF) than Mundy and that’s also highly unlikely.

Top 90 position players from 2010 to 2020 by fWAR: 28 high school players 35 college players 23 international players 4 JUCO players Top 60 pitchers (number 61 was Jason Hammel) from 2010 to 2020 by fWAR: 16 high school pitchers 25 college pitchers 16 international pitchers 3 JUCO pitchers The top 8 pitchers were all first round picks. Lester at 9 was a second round pick. Kluber at 10 was a 4th round pick.

Tony - I know you said you wouldn’t know much on the complex league, but do you have any early thoughts on Mishael Deson? He looks like he has a lot of tools to work with in the limited video I’ve seen.

It’s an overstatement for sure, but just saying (and I’m not saying you’re saying this) that we should only draft college players because they are safer and more likely to develop into impact players isn’t correct either. By rWar, the top 25 active position players is composed of 12 high school players, 5 international signings, 6 college players, and 2 junior college players. If you expand to the top 50, 18 are college players, 17 are high school players, 13 are international signings, and 2 are junior college players. The bottom line to me is you draft the best player regardless of college/high school/juco, and ruling out high school players in high rounds because they are riskier is malpractice.

Solid post, but the Rays are not risk averse when drafting players. Blake Snell was drafted out of high school. Josh Lowe was drafted out of high school. JJ Goss was drafted out of high school. Last year they drafted Nick Bitsko in the first round. There are many others. When they’ve traded players, they’ve acquired high ceiling players such as Xavier Edwards, Luis Patino, and Shane Baz. They’ve also supplemented with high ceiling players J2 players like Franco and Brujan (which Elias will also hopefully do). I don’t think you can always avoid high school players or pitchers early in the draft (acknowledging that Henderson was a high pick) just because the data isn’t as reliable in the model and college hitters are safer and more likely to become an average player.

Earlier I said Elias’ approach is so risk averse that it is actually risky and this is a great way of articulating it. To me ignoring high ceiling high school talent is akin to ignoring the international market. Very well said.

While Cowser and Williams walked more than they struck out, it’s not true of the other college hitters in the top 10: Norby: 33 BB and 34 Ks Trimble: 19 BB and 46 Ks Rhodes: 28 BB and 38 Ks Burns: 19 BB and 42 Ks Pavolony: 20 BB and 46 Ks Higgins: 29 BB and 38 Ks Cook: 12 BB and 43 Ks

So I have it an F, but I probably should’ve given it a D. I am annoyed that they don’t seem to be spending their entire pool when everyone seems to agree that the draft is the cheapest and most efficient method of talent acquisition. Basically, it’s just not the type of draft I enjoy. I just like high ceiling players and I don’t see a lot of it here. The draft generally seemed so risk averse that it was risky. Mike is certainly smarter than me, so I hope the model makes him look brilliant and me look like a clown.

I know. I noted that you mentioned that several pages ago, and that I thought it was an astute observation. Twice does point to a trend though, right?

Doesn’t sound like they’re using all of their allotment.

This has been my theory—the kids told him he could only spend $10 million or so.

So we agree now ?. I’d love for someone in the media ask him how the team intends to spend its full pool, but they won’t and he wouldn’t give a real answer, so I guess it would be kind of worthless.

My issue with the first wave is that they’re all fairly old. Wells is the youngest at 24, Kremer and Lowther are 25, and Zimmermann and Akin are 26. None have the pedigree or tools that Arrieta had. John Means developing at 26 is great and he put in a lot of work to make it happen by going to development coaches, increasing velo, etc. I’m not counting on any of those guys being a piece in the rotation in the future, and would be pleasantly surprised if one of them made a leap. That’s why I would have liked to see the O’s draft some pitching with real upside.

They could surprise us. I’m only saying it’s not exactly common and I’m not expecting it.

Lots of data for the model!

Based on what I know about past drafts, that’s not really a thing. They could’ve/should’ve talked to the representatives for any overslot players they were interested in after days 1 and 2 of the draft to get the number it would take for the player to sign and then taken them, not wait to round 19.